Оёдолч болжморынхонoyodolch boljmoriŋkhoŋ

General

Information is from dictionaries and other sources. Pinyin reflects Mandarin pronunciation; for some dialect names, it is no more than a polite fiction. Korean glosses are tentative. Comments and corrections welcome. Hover over Green LetteringGreen lettering at this site hides a tool tip with glosses, further explanations, etc. Hover cursor to reveal. to see additional information.

The weavers are found only in Yunnan in the far south of China. They are generally called 织布鸟zhī-bù-niǎo'weave-cloth bird' in ornithological Chinese, which is clearly a calque on the English name.

Zheng Guangmei's world list amends this to 织雀zhī-què'weaving sparrow/finch', on the eminently sensible grounds that though these birds may weave their nests, they certainly don't weave cloth!

The 1927 list of Chinese Birds (35) does not give a Chinese name for the weavers.

The meaning of Болжморboljmor differs between Mongolia, where it is used for the larks, and Inner Mongolia, where it means 'sparrow'. In this instance Болжморboljmor is being used in the Inner Mongolian sense as an equivalent of the Chinese morpheme 雀què, originally meaning 'sparrow' but now used as a general name for small birds.

雀 què in Chinese refers to small passerine birds. While the earliest meaning appears to be 'sparrow', the extension to finches and other small birds occurred very early.

The kun-reading of the character 雀 is suzume, normally understood as meaning 'sparrow'. However, 雀 can have other readings, including the on-reading jaku. When so read, 雀 in Japanese has the same range of meanings as 雀 què in Chinese. While it is mostly used for small passerines, it also preserves an older, broader meaning in words like 孔雀 kujaku 'peacock'.